


House of Healing

by gentlezombie



Series: Descension [2]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, BDSM, Caning, Consent Issues, Imprisonment, M/M, Mindfuck, PWP, Post-Movie, Spanking, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-13
Updated: 2014-08-13
Packaged: 2018-02-13 00:22:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2130045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gentlezombie/pseuds/gentlezombie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After accidentally discovering the possibilities of telepathic sex, Erik and Charles continue exploring Charles's ideas. In this instance, they involve a possibly delusional telepath trapped in a mental institution. How far can they go before someone breaks?</p><p>Follow-up to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1120695">Give up and give in</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	House of Healing

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that there is a previously agreed upon non-con scene in this fic. Consent issues get muddy. This turned out sort of dark and nasty, and I imagine it's not everyone's cup of tea.
> 
> This took me much longer than expected! Also I wasn't supposed to write 5K of porn, but what the heck. This is a part of [Descension](http://archiveofourown.org/series/67203) (previously Shadowplay), a collection of oneshots wherein our heroes have telepathic BDSM adventures in Charles's mind. This is set sometime after First Class but well before DotFP.

It gets more complicated.  
  
They’d actually discussed it, like two old civilized friends, sitting on a bench in the wintry Oxford of Charles’s mindscape.  
  
“How do you want this to go?” Erik doesn’t need to ask what this invitation to Charles’s mind means. “Do you want to be aware that it is what you wanted, this time?”  
  
Charles picks at his fraying gloves. His hair is longer than Erik remembered. Memories fraying, self-image getting caught up with the real world?  
  
“You only see what I want to show you. And no, I don’t think I want that. Not this time.”  
  
Because there is a good chance Charles will know his thoughts anyway and because he is genuinely wondering, he says out loud: “Who would want to do that to themselves, over and over again?”  
  
“You’re in my head. You tell me.”  
  
Erik shrugs. “It’s got colder in here.”  
  
“Always winter, never Christmas?” Charles’s lips quirk as Erik frowns at the unfamiliar quote. “Erik, you never visited while it was summer.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
There is a dull regret there, frustration at his own fear which had kept him prisoner, masked as self-preservation. He buries it quickly because it doesn’t matter now. Nothing except the now matters here.  
  
“What are you asking for, then?” he asks.  
  
Charles tells him.  
  
“I’m… not sure I can do that.” The words taste metallic in his mouth, the bitter copper of old coins and memories.  
  
“You can do anything here.”  
  
He glares at Charles as his reservations – he refuses to call them fears – are brushed aside. “Don’t I have any say over that? What about what I want?”  
  
Charles’s eyes pierce him, the innocent crystal-blue of the lake forged into a weapon.  
  
“What you wanted got me shot and crippled. I don’t think I care very much about what you want anymore. I could make you do anything I wanted. Anything at all.”  
  
Erik remembers once more that Charles is dangerous. Not because he can string each of Erik’s bones and play him like a puppet, but because Charles always sees where to strike and he does, with clarity and precision. Knowledge is power, and the danger and potential for destruction are a part of what keeps pulling them back together. That and the host of unnamed things always present between them.  
  
“Then I’ll keep you out of my head.” Erik can wear the helmet at all hours, if he has to.  
  
“It won’t help you now.”  
  
Erik sighs. Charles never gives an inch, unless he gives in all the way. That infuriating stubbornness has a lot to do with why Erik is willing to play along with these schemes and scenes.  
  
“But that would mean an end to this. And you don’t want that.”  
  
Charles doesn’t need an empty shell to do his bidding, not even one buried under layers of autonomy. It’s the furthest from what he wants.  
  
“No, I do not. Walk away and it will end. There will be a door.”  
  
“Good.” Trapdoors and hidden pathways are valuable in this game of hide and seek where the past and present hide in the shadows as they discover each other time and time again. “Shall we?”  
  
Everything is washed white. Erik hears Charles’s voice:  
  
“You might want to tell me I asked for it.”  
  
There is a hint of laughter in the words, and Erik scowls. Has the infuriating bastard been winding him up again this whole time?  
  
And then the game is on.  
  
***  
  
The walls are white. The lack of colour has a calming effect, or so they say. It provides an illusion of space where there is none.  
  
There’s a narrow bed, a chair, a table, and a stack of books on the table: Gulliver’s Travels, Plato’s Republic and a personal journal. The books are switched out once a month.  
  
Charles sits in the chair playing idly with the pencil, the only sharp object in the room. He’s never been known to be violent. He wonders what they’ll think of his newfound interest in political theory and satire, whether it’ll count against him in some obscure way. He reaches for the journal to write the thought down. They like reading his thoughts. He scoffs. Blundering idiots with their pills and psychoanalysis and their two feet firmly on the ground. They’ll never have any idea what it’s like to open your mind and fly.  
  
He’s interrupted by the door opening.  
  
“How are you this morning, Mr. Xavier?”  
  
The guard is new. Technically they are called nurses, but Charles knows them for what they are despite the white clothes and the sweet smell of disinfectant. This one’s got a pleasant face, angular features topped off with a bit of stubble.  
  
“I’m very well, thank you. I’m afraid you have the advantage of me, Mr...?”  
  
The guard doesn’t seem to mind his asking. Some of them do, prefer to keep it all impersonal.  
  
“Lensherr. You can call me Erik.”  
  
Erik takes out the medicine tray from the little trolley he’s brought with him. The cocktail of innocent-looking pills is supposed to take care of Charles’s hallucinations and irrational behaviour. Charles knows better. They’re what’s suppressing his telepathy, drying his mouth and filling his mind with cotton.  
  
But at the moment, he isn’t concerned with them. He sits straight, polite conversation flowing from his mouth, his excitement only betrayed by the slight trembling of his hands.  
  
Erik has left the door open. Only a crack, enough to let a sliver of daylight through, which means there must be a window in the hallway. Charles knows the room is in the ground floor. He can make it to the window, or find a door –  
  
Charles is out of the chair quick as lightning. He makes a mad dash for the door and the seductive wink of freedom, but forced passivity has slowed him down. As his fingertips brush the surface of the door, he is pulled back by a pair of strong hands on his shoulders. He struggles and kicks and lands an elbow on the guard’s chin, but his opponent knows tricks they don’t teach to academics. Charles’s arm is caught in a painful lock, and he is brought down to the floor, elbow and shoulder screaming in pain. His cheek hits the plastic carpet with a dull thud. A knee presses against his back as his hands are restrained.  
  
“That was a very bad move, Mr. Xavier.”  
  
The pressure disappears from his back. He lays there, dazed, and hears the door close with a heavy click.  
  
Charles gets cautiously to his knees, half-expecting to be pushed back down again. The full significance of what’s happened is only now starting to occur to him. It was his first real chance to escape since he got here months and months ago, and of course he had to take it, consequences be damned. He never really gave much thought to that part. His stomach twists as he raises his eyes to find Erik looking down at him.  
  
“You know misbehaviour results in the withdrawal of privileges. And you seem to be one privileged individual.” Erik eyes the stack of books on the table. “Should I report an attempted escape, the consequences would be far worse.”  
  
His books. The only thing keeping him sane, his only connection to the outside world. The loss of them would be the worst, no matter what Erik says.  
  
“Please don’t do that.” He tries to get a read on Erik, figure out an opening.  
  
“No apologies?” Erik looks expectant.  
  
Charles gets a feeling he’s being toyed with.  
  
“I’m sorry”, he says easily. He tries his best to look apologetic – creased brow, big blue eyes – but it’s difficult when he knows in his bones that trying to run was the best fucking thing he’s done since coming to this place.  
  
“You’re not. But you will be.”  
  
One of the emotionless creepy types, then. Erik’s voice is flat. There is complete conviction in his words. But he has neither left nor called for help yet. He’s giving Charles a chance. Charles grits his teeth, looks at the pitiful pile of books on the table – this is what his life is now – and makes himself say:  
  
“Let me make it up to you?”  
  
There are ways to trade with the personnel here, and Charles knows them as well as anyone. Even as the words leave his mouth he hopes against hope that Erik won’t be one of those guards. The hope is banished quickly as Erik’s eyes fix on his lips.  
  
“You know what to do, then.”  
  
Charles dearly wants to deny knowing anything about the sordid dealings of this place, but the unfortunate truth is that he does. Erik is slowly opening his zipper and remains standing where he is. The distance isn’t great, but it’s an awkward shuffle on his knees. Charles can feel heat on his cheeks even before he’s on eye-level with Erik’s cock. One look up at the cold grey eyes, and a hand on the back of his head tells him to get on with it.  
  
It’s big, but it’s not like he’s new to this. He licks and sucks at the head tentatively, concentrates on breathing as he takes more of it in his mouth. His nose presses against coarse curls, and Erik’s scent is burned into his memory together with the permeating smell of disinfectant.  
  
“Come on, get me hard.” The hand is demanding now, pushing him down, and Charles struggles for balance with his hands behind his back as Erik starts to fuck his mouth. Charles manages it for a while before he chokes. For a horrible moment he’s convinced Erik won’t pull away. He does, though, and Charles coughs miserably for breath.  
  
“Get up.”  
  
He does as he’s told. He knows it’s far from over – get me hard, Erik had said –  
  
“Walk over to the bed.”  
  
Charles swallows, takes the steps reluctantly. Erik takes a hold of his wrists, and to his surprise the restraints are removed. He doesn’t dare to move to rub his wrists.  
  
“Take off your clothes.”  
  
Charles stays completely still. He should have known it would come to this, but he didn’t want to know. He can’t do this, he _can’t_.  
  
“Erik, I –“  
  
Something terribly like a smile twists Erik’s mouth.  
  
“I’m not going to fuck you. But I need you to do exactly as I say. Otherwise the deal is off. You have a choice. I can walk away right now to report you, and you’ll deal with the consequences. Or you will do this simple thing for me.”  
  
He isn’t touching Charles, isn’t forcing him in any physical way. The illusion of choice is what makes it worse.  
  
Charles feels as though his hands belong to someone else as they move to the buttons of his shirt and slowly and methodically open every single one. He isn’t expecting to be told to stop at the underwear, and he isn’t. He keeps his hands to his sides, refuses the urge to cover himself under Erik’s gaze.  
  
“Get on the bed.  
  
He wants to run, but instead he lets his hands be tied to the headboard, wide apart, with soft straps of fabric. Erik lays a hand on his ankle.  
  
“Lift up.”  
  
For a moment Charles doesn’t comprehend what Erik is asking for, and then the guiding pressure of Erik’s hand gives away the idea. He has a sudden vision of what he’ll look like, completely exposed in the way Erik wants, and a hot and cold wave passes through him.  
  
“I can make you do it.” Erik’s voice is low, eternally calm. “But I’d rather not. Resisting treatment would look bad on your file.”  
  
Charles swallows the mad laughter tickling at his throat. Maybe he truly is going insane.  
  
“Is this your idea of treatment?”  
  
“Treatment varies based on the needs of the patient. Now, if you please.”  
  
Charles is just stalling; he’s going to do it and he knows it, he’s going to do everything Erik asks of him, because he can’t face the consequences otherwise.  
  
He lifts his leg as instructed, first one and then the other, and Erik’s hands guide him into the desired position with treacherous gentleness. His legs are lifted up and spread wide, putting most of his weight on his upper back, and they are secured to the headboard with lengths of rope. The angle is uncomfortable but manageable. Charles knows this, but he closes his eyes so tightly he can see tiny starbursts behind his eyelids. He can’t face anyone like this, least of all Erik with his unreadable, knowing eyes.  
  
“Eyes open.”  
  
There’s a tap to his ankle. Not knowing what’s happening might only make it worse. He forces his eyes open and sees himself, his own pale, spread thighs and his soft cock hanging upside-down against his belly.  
  
He looks at Erik and sees him holding a thin, flexible cane. The vulnerability of his position fills him with dread. Stupid, stupid. How did he let himself be talked into this, Erik didn’t even have to use force to tie him down…  
  
“Mr. Xavier, it seems we have a difference of opinion regarding the proper conduct of patients. You are arrogant; you think you don’t belong here; you disdain those who do. This is a place of healing, not a playground for your little anarchist rebellion.”  
  
Charles fervently hopes it’s only a lecture Erik is used to giving. He doesn’t really know anything. Can’t know anything as long as most of it is only inside Charles’s mind. Is it anarchist to long for the freedom to take a breath of outside air, to feel the chill of wind on your skin, to walk for miles and miles?  
  
“I know the likes of you. Too much thinking, too many high ideas swarming in that pretty head of yours. I’ll make it simple. I’ll give you what you need, and you’ll give me what I want.”  
  
Charles stares transfixed at the cane as it raises for the first time, at the way skin and muscle flex where Erik’s rolled up his sleeve in a meticulous fold.  
  
His whole body jerks as the first strike lands on his arse. The hot pain and burning humiliation spread through him like wildfire. The blows follow each other, falling on pale skin in a criss-cross pattern. He twists and struggles to get away, but he’s trapped immobile in this indecent position. Thoughts go flitting by, the only one that sticks is that he didn’t expect it to hurt this much, and even that’s wrong, he’s certainly never thought about this. What it would feel like. Whether he’d cry. He’s trying to keep quiet, trying to breathe through his nose, control it, but soon he’s yelping at every strike. The smack of the cane is loud and lewd as he receives his punishment, his hiding, God –  
  
The strikes cease, but the burn doesn’t – the burning pain, the burn of unwanted tears on his cheeks. The tip of the cane presses under his chin and he opens his eyes, bright and shocked.  
  
“I wanted you like this from the moment I saw you”. Erik’s hand strokes gently the inside of his thigh. “And you gave me the perfect opportunity. You were asking for it.”  
  
Something in Erik’s words resonates within him, plucks at a forgotten chord, and suddenly he’s horribly aware of his own arousal, of Erik’s hand touching him intimately.  
  
“I hate you”, Charles says, but it’s not convincing at all. He sounds only choked and desperate.  
  
“But you don’t hate this. Not as much as you’d like to think.”  
  
There’s nothing at all Charles can do to stop Erik from reaching for his cock, and he’s getting hard and there’s nowhere to hide.  
  
“Look at yourself.” Erik leans closer, too close, and Charles doesn’t dare close his eyes to avoid the sight of his cock displayed in Erik’s hand. “I know what you did to get those books.”  
  
Charles wrenches his eyes away and shakes his head. He didn’t, Erik can’t possibly know, what with the changing personnel no one is supposed to know – of Charles down on his knees in a dusty hallway, a cock in his mouth and greedy darkness in his mind, greed for scraps of information, human thought, any form of intellectual stimulation at all in the still sterile purgatory of this place.  
  
“You should know better than to lie to me. They have security cameras here, you know, and you’d be surprised by how well they cover the darkest corners.”  
  
Charles has no way of knowing whether it’s true or not, but the thought twists his stomach. Erik’s finger traces the curve of his lips, underlining his shame.  
  
“But you chose to lie.” Charles chokes out a sob as Erik’s fist tightens painfully around his cock, stares into Erik’s unforgiving eyes because that’s all he can do. He’s an insect pinned down, a subject for an experiment in ineffable cruelty and something he’s afraid might be desire. “You will be punished accordingly.”  
  
Erik steps back, and the cane whizzes through the air, and Charles is once more lost in the burning haze. The cane bites into the soft skin of his thighs. It’s like all the air’s disappeared from the room, and he breathes in through his mouth in short, agonised gulps and out again in moans at every downstroke.  
  
He tries to cling to what’s kept him sane throughout his imprisonment, words repeated over and over like a mantra:  
  
 _Your name is Charles Xavier. You are not insane. It is this place that’s insane. You can hear other people’s thoughts. Thought-reader, telepath, psychic. Remember this, remember when they take it away from you, when they hurt you. It’s a gift, something strange and beautiful and new, why can’t they see that? You have to get out of here. You have to make the world see._  
  
It’s a childish spell to keep the darkness at bay, and in this moment it is useless. Erik’s voiceover keeps him trapped firmly in the here and now. He himself can’t seem to stay quiet, unintelligible noises escaping from his mouth at every strike. He’s supposed to be better than this, above this corporeal reality and above his body, but right now that is all he is. A body to be used and abused.  
  
“You think you’re better than all of us, don’t you?” Charles flinches, hisses a startled breath as Erik catches the tail-end of his thought. “You think you’re above everyone else. Above humanity.”  
  
There’s a lull in the beating as the words sink deep. Charles tries to clamp down on his noisy breathing, the shuddering sobs trapped in his chest. He’s never been this shaken. It’s like someone’s taken his skin and peeled it back, exposed all the soft, filthy, dark things hiding right beneath. He starts as he feels Erik’s hands on him, tracing the insides of Charles’s thighs which he’s painted with fire. Erik is standing close enough for Charles to feel the crisp, cool fabric of his uniform pressing against abused flesh.  
  
“It’s lonely up there, isn’t it, in those delusional heights? I can help bring you down.”  
  
“I’m not delusional.” Charles’s voice is cracked, but somehow he finds the strength to glare at Erik with reddened eyes. Anything else he might be, but he’s not mad. His self is not imaginary.  
  
There it is again, Erik’s hand on his cock, gentle but firm and just right, this time. Charles shudders and almost bites through his lip. He’s hard, craving for the repulsive touch. Arousal is an alien sensation in this place where they take even that away from you with meds that make you sluggish and slow. The sterile stench permeating everything is the final killing blow. Now he’s soaring again on pain and adrenalin, assaulted by a multitude of feelings and sensations. He never got to take his meds this afternoon, he thinks distantly.  
  
Erik’s fingers travel up in this odd angle, cup his balls firmly, then press down behind them. Charles trembles, a whole-body shiver passing through him.  
  
“I don’t want this”, he whispers. He’s aching and terrified and humiliated and so hard it hurts. He doesn’t understand himself anymore, he doesn’t understand his body.  
  
“See? You are delusional. And I will help you. We will all help you, eventually.”  
  
Erik turns away from him, and for a moment Charles panics and then hates himself for it, the way he trembles at the absence of the hands which hurt him. Then the hands are back, stroking over heated skin, and leather-covered fingers are pressing slick inside him. Charles’s breathing stutters. It’s all too much – this isn’t, can’t be happening, but it is, and he can’t deny it, has to cling to the awful reality of this moment with both hands because it’s all he’s got left.  
  
The fingers breach him shallowly, and as a physical sensation it’s not all bad, compared with everything else. As a sign of what’s to come it’s the worst yet.  
  
“You might want to remember to breathe.”  
  
And then the fingers withdraw and there’s something else, a blunt pressure at his hole, smooth slick metal entering him. He screws his eyes shut, every muscle rigid as the thick length of the thing opens him up. It hurts more than he could have imagined, if he ever imagined this, and he trashes and writhes and fights, heedless of the restraints biting into his skin. It’s all in vain, of course, since he has no purchase at all in this position. All he can do is lay there splayed out and helpless and take it, inch by inch. Erik is slow, meticulously careful, twisting the plug as he pushes it in.  
  
Finally Charles has taken all of it. It doesn’t get easier. The stretching burn spreads through him until he’s shaking and pleading for Erik to take it out, because he can’t bear it, he can’t bear this.  
  
“You can and you will. I know you can take this and much more. I know exactly what you’re capable of.”  
  
Charles stares at Erik. The universe has shrunk down until Erik is the only thing in existence outside of his trapped body. For the first time it looks like Erik is affected. There are deep spots of colour painted on his cheeks. His gloved hands, however, are steady. He spreads both hands on Charles’s arse for a moment, and Charles shudders, momentarily distracted.  
  
Then Erik places his left hand on Charles’s thigh. His right hand takes hold of the plug, twisting and jerking it in tiny movements. Charles grits his teeth against the stretching sensation, but there’s also a shiver of something new, something not altogether unpleasant. Erik is watching him and sees every sensation on his face like he was the psychic here.  
  
“I know you’re not entirely opposite to this. I wish you would stop fighting it”, he says in the calm tone of a teacher who has been mildly disappointed. “I said I wouldn’t fuck you, and I won’t. This”, and his fingers push the plug deeper inside, “is to remind you of your place. And you do need the reminder.” Erik takes a hold of his hair, leans in very close. “I know about the markings on the books.”  
  
Charles’s eyes go wide.  
  
“So you understand this punishment is well deserved.”  
  
Impossible. He’d been so very careful.  
  
Erik takes his position again. Charles imagines he can feel the heat of him even through the air separating them.  
  
The first slap of his gloved hand is well-placed. It catches the base of the plug and jolts it inside Charles, drawing a strangled noise from him. Another slap lands with the same precision, and realisation falls on him. This is how it’s going to be. Erik won’t fuck him with his cock. He will let the piece of metal do the fucking for him as he continues with his punishment, leather-covered fingers precise and unforgiving on already abused skin. It’s… Charles doesn’t even know what it is, but it’s entirely too much.  
  
“Stop”, he grounds out between his teeth. His face is on fire. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please stop.”  
  
Another slap, another jerk of the plug inside him. Charles lets out an anguished sound.  
  
“I didn’t quite catch that. Are you saying you haven’t been exchanging messages hidden in library books with a certain Miss Frost, among others?”  
  
Charles closes his eyes. Someone, somewhere, has cracked. One of the patients trapped here for the same reasons as he, one poor bastard who was intelligent enough to figure out the code.  
  
“Because it would be a shame if something were to happen to her.”  
  
There’s nothing he can say to that. There’s nothing he can do except breathe and endure, and even that is getting more and more difficult. Pain he could deal with – or thought he could – but the way his body is translating all this to some twisted version of pleasure is something else entirely. Maybe he is the one who is broken.  
  
He’s completely, terrifyingly present in the moment for each slap of Erik’s hand, each thrust. They are getting harder, his whole body jerks every time leather meets flesh, he’s crying out and he isn’t even fighting it anymore.  
  
It takes a moment for him to notice that Erik has stopped. He’s too busy sobbing for breath. He isn’t even aware of Erik getting on the bed before he crowds in on him again, and this time it’s Erik’s naked cock pressing against his arse, Erik’s hand on his cock. He moans at the warring sensations as Erik jerks him off while thrusting against his burning arse.  
  
Nothing exists but this. His head is empty. There are no voices. There probably never were.  
  
There is only his own ragged voice, pleading wordlessly for something.  
  
He can feel the rattling of the bed in his bones. His vision goes hazy, filled with the wavering image of his own skin. It’s as though he can see something floating in the corner of his eye. A coin, spare change from Erik’s pocket because they aren’t allowed money here, of course, you could take out someone’s eye with a coin.  
  
He shudders in Erik’s hands as he comes, thinks with something approaching peace: I am mad after all.  
  
He’s floating in a strange cloud of serenity as he watches Erik rut against him until he comes. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters anymore, not the come dribbling down his stomach, not the thousand aches and pains in his body. Everything is dull and muted.  
  
“You’re not.”  
  
The words are incomprehensible. Then the movement in the air catches his eye again, and Charles sees the coins he imagined earlier, dancing in mid-air. The metal winks at him teasingly. And he stares at Erik as he finally begins to understand the extent of his cruelty.  
  
“But I’m afraid I might be.”  
  
Close up, Erik’s eyes are blue, and Charles can see right through him. In fact, he can see everything.  
  
It’s all real. It all matters. That is the weight which finally pulls him under.  
  
***  
  
Charles’s eyes are closed. He’s holding on to the edge of the bench, his knuckles showing up whiter than the frost covering the wood.  
  
“Charles.” Erik’s voice is insistent.  
  
“Just a moment longer, please.” Charles’s voice is impatient, detached, the tone fit for herding off pestering students. His face is scrunched up in imaginary pain.  
  
But now there’s a hand on his shoulder, shaking him less than gently, and he opens his eyes to glare at Erik.  
  
“You tend to wallow in your misery”, Erik tells him.  
  
“And what’s wrong with that?” There’s bite and spark in the words. It almost makes Erik smile.  
  
Then Charles takes a deep breath, centers himself as he always does, and when he lets the air out the lines of pain smooth out from his face and he leans back, calm and composed as ever. At least if one doesn’t know what to look for.  
  
“I don’t really see the appeal”, Erik says drily.  
  
“Ah, but that is the beauty of our arrangement, isn’t it?”  
  
Erik isn’t sure there’s anything beautiful in it at all. He knows that if his own mind hadn’t shaken them free of the remains of the scene, Charles would still be lying there on the narrow bed, painted with come and wrapped up in black despair. He doesn’t understand Charles’s need to prod at the darkest emotions of the human consciousness, still less the need to experience them.  
  
“It’s not the same when the feelings are not your own. Feelings are unique. They are made up of everything we are. They have a texture to them, a taste if you will.”  
  
“Thank you for answering a question I didn’t particularly want answered.”  
  
Erik isn’t really even angry with him. Lately, it’s been getting harder to be angry with Charles, at least immediately in the aftermath. Perhaps it is because Erik still feels guilty for enjoying this so much. Perhaps he is simply getting too used to Charles’s presence. Here it is, of course, overwhelming.  
  
“You’re welcome. The books were a nice touch, by the way. I think that was one of yours, not mine.” Charles sounds mildly amused, even curious.  
  
There is a question Erik needs to ask, though. He needs to hear the answer out loud.  
  
“Was that what you wanted, then?”  
  
Charles looks at him. His eyes are dark. Erik leans closer to him, his fingers hesitating over the fine wool of Charles’s cardigan.  
  
“Was it enough?”  
  
He wants Charles to tell him yes. He wants it with a frightening intensity.  
  
“Almost.”  
  
Erik feels chilled to the bone.  
  
“Looking back, I can see where you almost walked out the door.” Charles’s eyes go distant.  
  
“Did I? I wasn’t even aware.”  
  
“There, near the end, when you let me know the truth. The betrayal. That’s quite touching, actually.”  
  
There isn’t anything Erik can say to that. Nothing Charles doesn’t know already.  
  
If Erik has learned anything from these sordid games, it is that the depths to which he is willing to follow Charles are almost endless. More importantly, he has _always_ followed Charles, ever since the day they met and Charles pulled him out of the icy sea, even when he tried to tell himself otherwise. It is only fitting that Charles is the one to drag him down again.  
  
Erik might be looking forward to it.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Phew, there we are! This fic has been lying unfinished in my folder since spring, and it's great to be finally done with it. I have a feeling this turned out sort of purple, but that's how I usually feel after completing something. Comments are, as always, much loved and appreciated!


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